1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical connectors, and particularly to an adapter system for connecting coaxial cable to telephone cable.
2. Description of the Related Art
Coaxial cable wall plates are commonly situated on walls in homes and apartments to allow for coaxial cable connection. Coaxial cable is capable of transmitting both audio and video signals and is the primary cabling used by cable television companies and local area networks. While helpful in setting up cable television or computer networks, many individuals would prefer that the coaxial wall plate was instead a telephone jack wall plate.
Telephones are required to connect into specific wallplates having telephone jacks for reception of a telephone cable plug. There are a limited number of telephone jacks throughout an individual's home, thus requiring the individual to only place telephones near the telephone jacks. This restriction of position may not be preferential to the individual, who may prefer a different placement for the telephones. Thus, it would be useful to provide an adapter system that converts coaxial cable to be used for telephone cable.
The related art endeavors to provide adapters that modify existing electrical connectors. However, they do not easily allow for coaxial cable to be adapted to allow for telephone use.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,682, issued Mar. 10, 1987 to J. Tubbs, describes a pair of modular adapters for connecting VCR output terminals to television or other video equipment terminals. Each adapter has a housing with a modular jack portion and a coaxial connector or a twin-lead cable portion. The modular jack conductors are connected to the coaxial connector conductor or the twin-lead cable wires. The adapters are connected to one another with a modular connector cable. The cable has telephone jacks on either end, and each jack is inserted within each modular jack portion.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,740,172, issued Apr. 26, 1988 to J. Tubbs, describes a modular adapter for connecting VCR output terminals to television or other video equipment terminals. The adapter has a housing with a modular jack portion and a coaxial connector or a twin-lead cable portion. In another embodiment, the adapter may include screw terminals and a switch that allows for selection of the screw terminals or the coaxial connector.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,436, issued Aug. 31, 1993 to J. Bradley et al., describes an electrical connector having an RJ jack housing at one connector end for connection to a telephone jack and another connector end for connection to a coax cable. Internal circuitry within the electrical connector housing connects the coax cable connector end to the RJ jack housing connector end.
Other patents showing electrical connectors include U.S. Pat. Pub. No. U.S. 2001/0000161 A1, published Apr. 5, 2001 and invented by I. Laity (type III PCMCIA card with integrated receptacles for receiving standard communications plugs); U.S. Pat. Pub. No. U.S. 2001/0053627 A1, published Dec. 20, 2001 and invented by R. Armistead et al. (single-port connection and circuitry accepting both balanced and unbalanced data signals); U.S. Pat. No. 4,362,905, issued Dec. 7, 1982 to N. Ismail (universal adapters for modular plug telephones); U.S. Pat. No. 5,064,386, issued Nov. 12, 1991 to J. Dale et al. (convenience electrical outlet assembly); U.S. Pat. No. 5,326,931, issued Jul. 5, 1994 to S. Cain et al. (cable distribution interface unit); U.S. Pat. No. 5,413,494, issued May 9, 1995 to J. Dewey et al. (jack module assembly); U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,734, issued Oct. 3, 1995 to U. Eggert et al. (electrical connection system).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,556, issued Apr. 20, 1999 to L. Moreland et al. (apparatus and method for providing a telephone connection over a coax cable distribution system); U.S. Pat. No. 5,968,118, issued Oct. 19, 1999 to G. Sutton, Jr. (information outlet and industrial set top functionality); U.S. Pat. No. 6,069,315, issued May 30, 2000 to D. Tang (cable clamping apparatus for junction box); U.S. Pat. No. 6,488,542 B2, issued Dec. 3, 2002 to I. Laity (type III PCMCIA card with integrated receptacles for receiving standard communications plugs); Can. Pat. No. 2,268,686, published Oct. 14, 2000 (apparatus and method for providing a telephone connection over a coax cable distribution system); website http://phoneus.ronniebou.net/phone/phonejack.html.
Although the related art addresses electrical adapters, what is needed is an adapter or adapter system that is capable of converting an existing coaxial cable for use as a telephone cable.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed. Thus an adapter solving the aforementioned problems is desired.